24 Ways to Supercharge Your iPhone’s Native Apps

24 Ways to Supercharge Your iPhone’s Native Apps

The iPhone is considered one of the most fool-proof gadgets out there on the market. While there are always cool, fun, and amazing secrets to unlock as you begin using your iPhone—like zooming in, the multitask tool, and more—there is always a way to increase the quality of your iPhone through the use of applications. Aside from applications that extend the applications that we like, we rarely think about applications that replace those which are already there. Today, we’ll take a look at those applications and how you can implement them on your iPhone.

Calendar and Reminders

The calendars and reminders application is a great program on the iPhone. For many users, it organizes the tasks that they have at hand: in terms of calendars, the iCloud feature allows them to view their events both on their Mac and through the iCloud website along with other iOS devices they may own. Reminders, while lacking as many rave reviews as Calendar, is still a good application that allows individuals to man their to-do list. Below are four applications that replace these two programs already on iPhone.

Wunderlist: An improved to-do list that allows you to categorize them and even invite others to work on them with you.

Photos and Camera

The camera program is very simple to use: simply press the camera button to take a photo, where it’s automatically added to the photo library. The options section allows you to do more features like panorama and HDR, however, these options are far from the advanced features that other cell phones can do, and much further from what we expect from digital cameras with equal megapixel quality. The photo viewer is quite barebones as well, usually with sharing features being it’s main attraction. Below, we have three applications that are great replacements.

iPhoto: Take your photos to the next level with this Mac favorite for iOS.

KitCam: Multi-shoot, Face detection, and even video recording improvements all in this one app.

Apple Maps

Chances are you may have stumbled across this application simply because of this feature alone: Apple Maps is quite infamous for how horrible it is, but we shouldn’t be too harsh on the mapping application—it’s still growing. This doesn’t mean that we have to bear through the tough growing period; there are many alternatives while Apple Maps goes through its adolescence. Here are three applications that satisfy transit, mapping, and navigation.

Google Maps: A long favorite prior to Apple’s severed ties with Google, now back and better than ever.

The Transit App: Get transit schedules and even plan your trip around the city according to transit stops with this free app.

MotionX GPS Drive: A highly inexpensive ($0.99) navigation app that is high quality and just purely amazing.

Weather

The weather application is okay, but many individuals say that it is plagued with inconsistent readings and is considered very inaccurate by individuals. Also, it’s as bare bones as most other applications on iPhone. Just recently were we able to see weather information by the hour, whereas we used to have to rely on weather information by the day. Below, we have three applications that replace the Weather app and extend the way that you consume weather news and information.

Swackett: See weather conditions as outfits; know what to wear according to the weather.

Notes

If your only exposure to note-keeping on your iPhone is the notes app, then you are missing out on a ton. Third party applications are considered the norm in how you do mobile note-taking; very few people use the onboard notes app. To understand why, you must dive in and try out the various note-taking applications that are available for iPhone users today. Here are four note-taking applications for iOS users.

Awesome Note : From diaries to other note-taking features, Awesome Notes does it well!

Evernote: Make document changes and have them automatically apply to your desktop Evernote app.

Clock

The clock as a whole is a part of the application that you may not entirely care about; since the current time is available on the lock screen and the top of the iPhone’s screen. However, two instances where time becomes important are during travel, and as a way of waking you up in the morning. For most people, alarm clocks are a thing of the past, and mobile phones have effectively replaced them. We have four clock applications for you that replace the current native app in time-reading and alarms.

Alarm Clock HD: The alarm clock that I use—adjust lighting, view your social media feed, and more in a battery-life friendly app.

iHome+Sleep: You don’t need an iHome to benefit from this app, which lets you wake up to your iTunes playlist.

Alarm Clock Free: View weather, the day of the week, and more with this simply-designed app.

Alarm Clock + : Enjoy wonderful themes, and even the ability to change between analog and digital.

Contacts

Finally, the contacts feature is the one that many users are hoping to see more advanced upgrades from. Contacts currently allows you to hook it up with iCloud to view contacts on your Mac and to automatically apply it on other iOS devices. You can also hook your contacts up with Facebook and Twitter to have contact images and information automatically applied. Users look for more than what Contacts for iOS can offer, so below are four applications that satisfy these needs.

Smartr for iOS: Create the ultimate contact list, with the ability to connect your networks and emails to have a central network, with the ability to view contact history as well.

Emmanuel Banks is a technology writer based in Northern Virginia. The former Editorial Director for Mountain View, CA-based startup, Teens in Tech, Emmanuel has also been a part of the Lifehack team since November 2012. Emmanuel is involved in HTML/CSS coding, consulting startups, and travel.